Book 1 in the Seasonal Swoon series
Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 4.5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (📱)
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Flirty Fall Fling yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
OPENING HOOK
Flirty Fall Fling is basically everything fall in written form, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give. I could practically feel the pumpkin spice and caramel dripping from it, and it arrived the very same day the cool gloomy weather moved in where I live, so the vibes were strong for this one!
THE FULL STORY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Blaire Wardwell just inherited her aunt’s historic mansion and witchy shop, Charmed Cauldron, and she’s settling into her new life as a proud generational witch in tiny Colorado mountain town. Then Jamie shows up, and the second she sees him her intuition reacts. She reads his coffee grounds and sees that he will find his soulmate, but something about that causes her to panic. She quickly tells him he will just find a fall fling, and rushes him out of the store. When she goes back to look at her own cup (that she had poured for herself on a whim), she finds the exact same symbol; a match to his. So yeah, you could say that the Universe is not being subtle here.
What follows is secret dating, but with an expiration date (because that always works). They agree to spend part of September and October together, ending the whole thing on Halloween night. Which is a great plan right up until it isn’t, because Jamie is actually a billionaire from New York hiding out because his foundation wants his image cleaned up (he dates a lot, but he’s not a dirty hoe, he’s just a social creature getting out there and searching for love). Once the paparazzi catch them together, Blaire’s whole world is flipped upside down. Being a loud and proud witch can be a bit terrifying with the full force of tabloid attention, and it turns into a bit of a shit storm. They double down and keep seeing each other in secret, but stay tucked away at her cabin and his twin brother’s place in a gated community.
It would be criminal not to mention the Salem trip where the photos that outed them as a couple were taken. A private jet whisks them away for a spontaneous weekend in a place Blaire absolutely loves. They walk into one shop that happens to be run by another generational witch, and she picks out Blaire’s bloodline instantly. Blaire picks up on this and flees outside for fresh air, but before he follows, the witch tells him that Blaire’s bloodline is the one that cursed his family three hundred years ago, and also confirms that Jamie and Blaire are fated soulmates. Jamie is shocked to hear her bloodline placed the cursed, but her’s not at all surprised that they’re meant to be together, because at that point he’s falling fast.
Meanwhile Blaire’s ex resurfaces after five years, and he is not taking no for an answer. He’s become obsessive, and it Blaire thinks that a love spell she cast before she met him years ago has twisted from love into obsession, so she and Jamie have to break that bond together. I liked these little moments of magic when Jamie feels like he is being let into her world and he can actually feel the shift in the air when her magic works.
After Halloween, Jamie leaves for New York like they agreed, but Blaire quickly realizes that this is not what she really wants. From here things go a little sideways. She loses her phone and his gets disconnected because he quits the foundation rather than cut ties with her, so it’s not a breakup, but it’s not “together” either. Just a mess of bad timing until they find their way back to each other, and it’s not dragged out for very long (thank you Lyra, I may have rioted if two people so obviously meant to be together were separated much longer than that)
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
The atmosphere. The nights wrapped in blankets under the stars, the festivals, the caramel apples, the macchiatos and baking, the hay bale mazes, and magical ingredients… every cozy fall moment you want from a book like this is here, and it’s brought to life so well that you can practically smell the cinnamon coming off the page.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
Blaire’s refusal to admit Jamie was more than a fling. She spends the whole book trusting signs from the universe, reading tea leaves, leaning into her magic, but when the Universe hands her Jamie over and over, and she just will not budge on that Halloween deadline. For someone this intuitive, it felt weirdly out of character, and by chapter 35, listening to them both lament over how little time they had left together, I had put the book down a couple of times. Only to go make a coffee or take the dog, but I was frustrated AF at a few points and needed a moment to vent.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
- 🔥🔥🔥🔥 — Spicy
- Sex scenes: yes, explicit and frequent. I’d say technically a 3, but the frequency alone bumps it up to a 4
- Romance is absolutely central to the plot, not a subplot
- Content warning: past obsessive-ex behaviour tied to a love spell gone wrong
THE TWIST WE DIDN’T SEE COMING
The Salem reveal. Finding out Blaire’s own bloodline was the one that cursed Jamie’s family thre hundred years ago, and having it come from a total stranger, was a great little twist.
THE CHARACTER WE LOVED TO HATE
The ex. He’s not a total out-of-nowhere plot device because Blaire’s history with him gets mentioned enough in passing that his return isn’t a total shock, but the obsession angle still felt like it arrived a little out of left field given the five-year gap in contact with him. He was easy to hate regardless.
THE ENDING — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Satisfied. The broken-communication stretch could have tipped into third-act-breakup frustration, but it never did. It flowed naturally, and the ending landed the way I wanted it to. Happily ever after or bust, am I right?
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
An enthusiastic yes, for the atmosphere alone. This is a book I’ll come back to just to sit in that fall feeling again.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Anyone who wants an homage to fall with a bit of witchy, magical, a little bit of “something’s working under the surface of everything” energy. If you want a little magic in your life, this is your book. Happy fall, y’all.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org — not listed yet
📱 Ebook
Amazon Kindle | Bookshop.org — not listed yet
🎧 Audiobook — no audiobook edition found as of now
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MORE FROM THIS REVIEWER
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Plot Twisted. 🔥
📱 | Series: Seasonal Swoon Book 1 | Genre: Romance / Paranormal | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
TAGS: flirty fall fling, lyra parish, seasonal swoon series, fall romance, witchy romance, paranormal romance, spoiler review, book review, spicy romance, cozy fantasy romance, secret dating romance, autumn read